Daily Maintenance Weigh In - TGIF 3/29

The past two months I have been working getting off the 3-4 lbs that I had slowly put on. I don't do days of protein shakes, because I like to eat. I cut out protein bars, no sugar added fudge sickles, and a couple of other items. I have focused on clean eating and even though it has been slow going, it has worked. My exercise routine was really shaken up, which also helped , as well as dropping my calories a bit. I don't cut my calories drastically, because at this point, I would be losing more muscle, which I don t want to do. Slow and steady, and clean eating win the race for me.

It really does get harder, the closer we get to goal.

Gail

I had a nice response all done and OH lost it. Damnit.

Thank you Gail. I decided this morning that I can't keep doing the shakes like this. I think it's part of what makes me so nuts. I'm going back to Elina's soups and staying aware of anything bad that tries to creep in.

I also just realized that I worked out with weights last night. Fluid retention is a definite possibility.

I keep reaching down deeper and deeper to try to find SOMETHING to spur on to goal.

Working out with weights will increase your weight a bit due to your muscles holding onto water for muscle repair. My weight usually goes up about a pound after weights and/or heavy exercise.

Shakes make more sense early on, when we have a lot of fat to burn.

Elina's soups are basically lean protein and green veggies. Very healthy and your body has to work harder to breakdown and digest the protein. Plus, it is more filling than a protein shake . Eating real food is more doable in the long term and is part of lifestyle change that everyone talks about.

Hugs.

Gail

Have you had Body Fat tested?  When I got close to "goal" I fine-tuned the goal using body fat.  I felt that was a good way to have an objective number to shoot for... I ended up staying a little higher than I thought as to get to the lower number would have required a really low BF% that probably wouldn't be sustainable.  Or chopping off a leg. But that's lean tissue :)

Goal weights are pretty arbitrary - I really wanted to set mine based on some rational process, and the best I could come up with was a bf%. SInce I hit goal my weight has even come up  a pound or two, on average, but from retesting, I know that I'm adding muscle, not fat, so I'm OK mentally with it.

I REALLY want to do a BodPod. That seems like a cool way to figure out my body. I think there's a place downtown that I might call.

My scale does a body fat calculation. the scale says my BMI is 26.8 right now (I know this is different than BF). I can't remember what it said about my BF. I think I'll star****ching it. I also can go into my doctor's office and ask for one of their full print outs. I might do that, too.

I work out so much, I know that the scale may not be the best measure for me. At my 1 year post op visit, I'd only lost 11% of my muscle mass. I've been told that is really good.

I agree with the body fat testing. That is what helped me to determine my gaol weight. Take your measurements.

The scales can be OK, if you use them a lot and sort of track the trend.  I did the Bodpod and got a more accurate measure - but it is still subject to some variability - so correlating with the scale and your weight and your knowledge of how much you're working out all cross-check each other.  My plan is to do bodpod 2-3 times a year, and correlate with these other measures.  

I find that the scale BF% is pretty variable - due to hydration level.  I think if you get on every day, at the same time, you'll at least get some idea, tracking it over time to see any trends is a good idea - but day to day changes are going to be kind of random.

 

Maybe the problem is your goal...

At one point in my maintenance I was up to 125 but I was fitting into my smallest jeans. I knew I was fit and trim and had been doing CrossFit so I knew I had a lot of muscle. But our brains are so stupid sometimes. Because of that number on the scale, I was convined my body fat was higher than I wanted it to be.

Then the I was doing some calculations for a post about Goal Weights and how you pick them. I got out Excel and came up with what my weight would be if I had the body fat I wanted and the muscle mass I wanted. Guess what that weight was? Haha, yep, 125. So the whole time I as secretly beating myself once in a while for not having a body fat percentage of 17 or 18%, it was probably my dream 15%! I feel so DUMB!

Anyway, if your body wants to be a BMI of 27, why not let it? It's not a bad BMI and you probably do have big and heavy bones. (I don't -- I have a medium frame, close to a small one and I'm losing bone density as I age and can't do strength training.) Plus you have a pound of loose skin for every 10 pound you lost (give or take). To me, when we become obsessed over the numbers on the scale it's like Hollywood and The Media and a bunch of strangers who probably hate women have won!

How is it that I never see these horrible "f-word" make someone cry posts on the main board? Or am I just oblivious?

Hang in there. It does take time for changes to take effect. You will do this I believe in you; the fact that you're here every day battling it means you're serious.

Sorry about the monthly meeting changes. I gave up on ours because it was full of early pre-op folks who weren't complaint, didn't want to be compliant and seemed really upset (despite all the pre-op training my surgeon's office does) that they were going to have to eat different foods. The nutritionists and longer term patients are all pulling our hair out because they don't WANT to listen. Did they just sleep through the training?

I have a co-worker who's about 7 months post-op from a sleeve. She marvels at my success, says she doesn't know how I did it but she sees how I eat and we even discussed it pre-op. Yesterday, went into her office and she was eating one of those little crap-food, high-calorie pot pies.

Oh, there have been a few that have left crying. I'm trying to be nicer - harness my inner Elina. Okay, I'm totally not as nice as Elina.

It's not the f-word that makes them cry. It's usually everything else I say. I've never been stellar at filtering my responses.

Yeah, I think that meeting was my last one. Now I have to decide if I go find another meeting, or just call it good. Don't know. I have a month to figure it out.

Did you say anything to the co-worker? There was a woman at the meeting last night who's 6 months out from GB and she was so angry. She hates her surgery. She hates the eating. She said she's started grief counseling. She's a mess. It all came down to the fact that she's overwhelmed by the new diet and she doesn't feel like she has time to put in the effort to figure it out. She's losing, but she's barely getting in 30 grams a protein a day. I gave her my number and told her to call me. I'd give her a couple of frozen bags of Elina's chicken soups. But, otherwise, I've got nothing else for her.